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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28991805">Because I Want To</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monstrosibee/pseuds/Monstrosibee'>Monstrosibee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>In Our Room, After The War [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Caretaking, M/M, i just want them to be clean and in love and happy, non-sexual nudity, showering together</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:09:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,005</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28991805</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monstrosibee/pseuds/Monstrosibee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He was clean enough that he wasn't tracking mud on the carpet as he ate a slightly soggy bowl of Weetabix in the hallway and watched Martin moving things in the bathroom with puffy eyes, but the usually neat white crescents of his nails were black with dirt, and when he went to brush a lock of hair from his face, it moved as one solid mat of mud.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>In Our Room, After The War [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2126724</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Because I Want To</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jon had taken a shower when he'd first gotten to Martin's flat after the reception, of course, but he'd nearly fallen asleep halfway through and kept dropping the shampoo bottle, so Martin had decided he just needed to get the worst of the muddy Choke off his exhausted shivering body and then lay down.</p><p>Then he'd fallen asleep in Martin's bed, dressed in an old school t-shirt, and slept for about 36 hours.</p><p>After about the 18th hour mark, Martin had stopped worrying when Jon had sleepily attempted to grab for a glass of water that didn't exist, then grumbled and rolled back over into sleep. Two months in the Choke was a lot, even if the dread powers were maybe a quarter of their strength they had been before, and Jon no longer had the recovery time of a horror X-man anymore. He was alive, and the worry over health and doctor's appointments could wait for just a day or so more. Plus, the extended nap gave Martin time to run out and get a few things.</p><p>But there was still dirt caked in every crevice and curve of Jon's body, matting his salt and pepper curls to his neck and shoulders and back, and Martin would bet real actually currency that Jon had an ear infection as well, considering the earache he'd complained of before immediately passing out when he'd climbed into the car after the reception. He was clean enough that he wasn't tracking mud on the carpet as he ate a slightly soggy bowl of Weetabix in the hallway and watched Martin moving things in the bathroom with puffy eyes, but the usually neat white crescents of his nails were black with dirt, and when he went to brush a lock of hair from his face, it moved as one solid mat of mud.</p><p>Arrayed out around the small pressed board vanity and sink, Martin had unloaded a large variety of shampoo bottles, soaps, cleansers, moisturizers, shaving creams, luffas of several different sizes and shapes, razors both disposable and not, at least three different handheld mirrors, and a box that Jon thought looked rather like the one Georgie had kept her clippers in when they had roomed in college. Having moved on from the veritable salon of soaps and the like, Martin was now immersed in the assembling of what looked to be a small plastic step stool.</p><p>The hem of the borrowed t-shirt tickled against Jon’s still sensitive skin along the back of his legs - scraped raw as it had been by the coffin’s gritty mud - as he stepped into the bathroom, threading around the plastic wrapping that had been torn off the step stool. He had to hold his Weetabix bowl above his head as Martin straightened suddenly to avoid his scalp scattering the last soft remnants of Jon’s breakfast all over the bathroom floor. When Martin turned to see him standing there though, complete with dirt clod hair and swollen puffy eyes and knees slightly knocked by poorly fused growth plates and old injuries, the smile he offered was the sun and stars and every single constellation in the night sky.<br/>
Jon found the sight of it made him rather feel like the poet.</p><p>“Glad to see you getting something solid in you!” Martin’s voice was soft, held low for Jon’s status as newly awake, but the faintest excited tremble in its usually steady tone betrayed just HOW glad he was.He stood up from where he’d been kneeling on the linoleum tile, hooking a finger around the edge of the now assembled plastic step stool and tucking it into the walk in shower. “I left the cereal out because I figured anything heavier might be rough on your stomach.”</p><p>Feeling the slight tug of guilt at his chest for making Martin worry, Jon cleared his throat and nodded. “Yes, I found that a bowl of cereal was just what I was feeling when I woke up, thank you.” Shifting a bit so he could see around Martin and into the shower, he caught sight of more soaps on the rack. “You seem to have been busy.”</p><p>Martin gave that smile again - Jon could swear it made the freckles on his cheeks glow as he did - and glanced around at the collection he had around them, self consciously rolling the sleeves of his sweater back down to his wrists. “Well, you did manage to get a rinse when we got in the other day, but you’re going to need a real taking care of now - your hair is a single piece from the mud, I think, and I don’t want to even guess what it feels like to have that much dirt in your actual pants.I wasn’t sure what you were going to need so I got a bunch of stuff while you were asleep.”</p><p>Placing the cereal bowl on the sink, Jon picked up one of the nearby bottles of shampoo. “What, all of this? Martin, you really didn’t have to, you already used so much money on that gravestone and the funeral and -”</p><p>He shut his mouth as a larger warmer hand caught his on the shampoo bottle, and he was drawn into a full but gentle hug, a chin resting on his matted hair. “I wanted to do this, alright?” Martin drew back , a bit of a conflicted expression twisting the corner of his mouth. “I actually did something a little similar for myself when I came home, and I think you’re definitely dirtier than I was when I went down to the street to the pharmacy and got myself an entire cart full of nice smelly things to feel a bit more like a person.”</p><p>A bit of amusement tugged at the corner of Jon’s mouth, and he slid away from Martin’s arms to lean against the counter as the latter started messing with the clippers in their box. “Oh, I don’t know about that. You were getting pretty ripe at the end there.The Extinction couch didn’t really help with the smell, either.” That earned him an easily dodged swat with the empty clipper box, and he chuckled, wagging one of the soap bottles at Martin. “You really could have used a shower.”</p><p>“And I gave myself a very long hot one,” sniffed Martin as he plugged the clippers in and tested them, humming when they buzzed to life. He turned back from the cracked marble of the vanity counter to face Jon, gently running a hand over the clumped hair on the top of his scalp. He let his hand hover about Jon’s head for a moment before Jon nodded gently; Martin wanted even the softer touches to be under complete and total consent.</p><p>Wincing when Martin caught a finger in a particularly nasty dirt clod, Jon grimaced. “I was hoping to save it if I could...It’s taken me a while to get it this long.” He pulled a length of mats away from his chest and rolled it between the fingers of his good hand. “After taking a closer look at it this morning though, it might just be healthier for it to go for the full sheep shearing.”</p><p>Martin nodded sadly, reaching into the mounted cabinet on the wall to pull out a pair of scissors. “I’m worried about bugs too...I’ve never been in the Buried myself, but I wouldn’t want to chance bringing an outbreak of lice or something like it in here. Especially with how dirty any bites might be.”</p><p>When he glanced back to the mirror, Jon finally took in how exhausted he looked despite the long rest, the pale moons of the worm scars dotting his cheeks, the patchy stubble and absolutely filthy hair framing his face. Smears of oily dirt speckled the collar of Martin’s old sleep shirt where it sat a little crooked on his too scrawny shoulders, as his hair had swept over his shoulders. His eyes were puffy with both fatigue and oversleep, and there was something itchy about the pink at their watery corners.</p><p>He jumped when he felt Martin’s hand on his shoulder again. “I know you like it this length, but you’ll feel a lot better with it clean and neat. And it will always grow back.”</p><p> </p><p>Jon took one last look at his reflection and sighed, waving a reluctant hand. “Yes, yes, you’re right. And let’s do it now; I want to get it over with so I can take a real shower.” He glanced around, suddenly unsure again. “Should I, er…should I stand in front of the mirror?”</p><p>Considering, Martin pointed at the toilet seat with the clippers. "Nah, it'll be easier to do it with you sitting down. I'm a might taller than you, but not enough that I can comfortably get the top of your head." It was his turn to dodge one of Jon's swats for the dig at his height, but it was quickly interrupted with a yawn. "You'll probably need to sleep again after the shower, if all that sleep debt is actually catching up to you. Let's get the less fun part over so you can have more shower time before you pass out on me again."</p><p>A shiver tickled its way up Jon's spine as Martin's fingers combed through his hair, and he leaned into the touch. Despite the raw dry rash and scale of his scalp, the gentle sensation was soothing in the heavy dirt caked mess, occasionally untangling a less clumped knot or prying lose a pebble or piece of gravel. Several minutes passed like this, and Jon found his eyes drifting shut out of contentment rather than fatigue, his hands slowing from their fidgeting to rest lightly between his knees.</p><p>"Oh, I wasn't sure if you could still do that." His eyes snapped open at Martin's voice as the scissors finally made the first cut. Not wanting to jostle Martin's workspace, Jon made a concerted effort not to turn and look at him, but he frowned down at the floor as hanks of hair slowly dropped past his face. Most of them were single chunks of dirt woven through with his black, gray peppered curls, though some looked to be just crusted mud. His toes curled in the cheap nylon bathroom rug, and he had to try very hard not to remember the sensation of the mud slurry all around him.</p><p>"Do what?" His voice was still a bit cracked from disuse and dehydration. </p><p>"You stopped when I said something." Snip, snip. More hair on the bathroom tile and rug, piling up around Martin's sock feet. "But you did it sometimes when we would stop and rest, and I had you tucked up under my arm. It...it sounds like a tape recorder? Like the crackling noise they make when they record." There was some shuffling behind him, and the clippers started to hum. "I think you do it when you're comfortable or almost asleep. Sort of like how you used...used to be able to make sound effects when you were doing statements, only not on purpose."</p><p>Now Jon did turn around before Martin could go at him with the clippers, and the latter drew back, obviously worried he'd done something over a boundary. "Martin," Jon demanded in that imperious tone he got when he was struggling with something and didn't want to let on, "Are you saying I...purr?"</p><p>Martin hesitated, bit his lip for a second in an obvious attempt to stifle a giggle, then nodded. "I hadn't thought of it like that until now, but I guess I am saying that. It's a tape recorder purr, and I think it's very appealing." He leaned down where Jon was still staring with his mouth slightly agape and kissed him gently on the scruffy temple. "You can contemplate your new alignment towards housecats while I get the rest of this off of you, turn around." His gray eyes were still crinkled with amusement as Jon let him resume his trimming.</p><p>Now that the clippers were on, the rest of it was a gentle but quite complete shearing. He could feel the vibration of the tiny motor on his scalp, and when it crept behind his ears, he had to hold his breath to stop from squirming away from the ticklish buzz. Every time Martin's hand brushed against the peach fuzz of his new haircut, now that he was paying attention, Jon could feel the burble of tape recorder whirr in his throat and chest, and he was torn between intense curiosity and absolute embarrassment at being so completely betrayed by his own body.</p><p>After about fifteen minutes, the hum of the clippers faded into silence, and Jon opened eyes that had once again drifted shut to see himself staring back. Martin let him take the hand mirror he'd been holding in front of him and examine the contours of his hairline and scar he hadn't realized was above his right ear and the divots in his skin where something had marked him, whether the something was worms or monsters or as mundane as a pebble in the mud. With it this short, only an inch or two out of his scalp, his hair was stunningly gray, almost completely so, and with a dissatisfied hum - his voice this time, no whirring tape - he rubbed a hand over it. "I look like an aged peach."</p><p>Martin snorted, rolling the sleeves of his sweater back down to his wrists. "You're exaggerating. I think you look like you'd play chess at the park and carry an old ratty book under your arm." He pulled a broom from the linen closet and started sweeping the remains of Jon's original hair style into a pile. "Distinguished."</p><p>Jon pulled his bony legs up onto the toilet seat so as to get them out of the path of the broom. "You're my boyfriend, you're supposed to say that. I look like I've been shaved for my wool." Abandoning the mirror to free up both hands, he began running them back and forth over his fuzz, marveling at the novelty of how soft it felt at this length despite the fact that he still definitely needed a shower.</p><p>"Well, I think this season's wool is a bit of a wash, huh?" The last of the dirt and hair was swept into the corner for later vacuuming, and Martin leaned the broom over it before moving back to Jon's side. "Unfortunately I couldn't find a shower chair on such short notice, but the corner Tesco had some of those tall plastic step stools so that'll have to do until we can get something a bit more built for the task." He glanced down at Jon, who caught those gray eyes with his own before they turned back to the shower. Caught the clouds of the Lonely that had only grown thicker in the two months he was Choking, though the cold wet condensation was mostly internal now. "You remember how the faucet works?"</p><p>Maybe it was something about that moment of eye contact, or the chilly damp atmosphere of the flat when Jon had woken, or the fact that he'd been able to feel the icy cold of Martin's fingers even through the dense mats of mud and hair before he'd even started cutting. It was like the fog was in him in that moment, like Jon could feel all that time he had been gone in an instant from Martin's side, feel the numb aching cold in his bones and his joints and skin. It wasn't Knowing; Knowing was in words and images and precise specific sensory information. This was the messy imprecise chemicals of human emotion and understanding and nonverbal accidental communication, none of which Jonathan Sims was terrifically experienced with.</p><p>And in that fog of Martin's he could feel his own, feel the desperate clambering terror he'd felt in the Choke when he thought he had killed the world even more than before, and he was alone in existence. The sore throb of the time between waking from his coma and ending the world. The small snap of quickly thawed ice when he'd woken alone in Martin's bed earlier that morning. He wasn't given to indulging the Lonely - his own thoughts were often far too much of a loud and pushy companion to drift away from them like it liked in its victims - but all of sudden Jon could not be alone, and even more so could not let Martin be alone in that tiny flat in a newly saved world with that fog and all its kinds of creeping colds pulling at him.</p><p>His hand, the one made crooked and stiff by molten wax, clamped around Martin's wrist as he was turning to go. Even through the sweater, though Jon could feel a pulse, the skin was chill.</p><p>Martin responded with a startled jerk and looked down, clearly unaware of the simultaneous emotional crisis and epiphany going on in his toilet. "Jon? I'm sorry, did you need something before you shower? I thought I got everything you might need..."</p><p>"Stay." It was at that moment Jon realized he wasn't sure how to proceed with this. Clearing his throat, he stood from his spot on the toilet seat, suddenly self-conscious. "I mean - I mean, would you stay?"</p><p>When all he received for a moment was an expression of slight surprise, the prick of nerves grew to a sudden embarrassed regret, and he looked quickly down, releasing Martin's wrist. "No, no, nevermind, that's very personal, you probably still need time, I'm sorry if I pushed. I can just-"  </p><p>"Jon." He made himself look back up at Martin's face, and the surprise had crumbled into a combination of intense relief and what might have been the slight edge of tears. "Of course. You can always ask me that."</p><p> </p><p>Undressing wasn't an erotic affair for them, but Martin felt a little thrill of anticipation all the same. Of course they'd dressed in the same room and space at the safehouse, but here in the small space of his flat bathroom, it was somehow a million times more intimate and revealing than it had been during those three weeks. As he disrobed in front of the mirror, he continually stole glances over at the space in front of the shower where Jon did the same.</p><p>Jon squirmed out of his shirt, pulling it off his rough angles like it could catch and tear on them. He was bony both from his recent experiences and by nature, and it pained Martin a little to see how prominent the ridges of his ribs and collarbone were through the woody red brown of his skin. A coarse layer of black-and-some-gray hair shaded most of that skin, thickening along his forearms and down his legs. It also did so in a widening path from his ribs to his hips in a way that reminded Martin vaguely of the downy fluff of a kitten's stomach, though he had to imagine it wasn't quite that soft, and he couldn't but help imagining burying his face in it. </p><p>The worm scars clustered more tightly around Jon's hip, and coalesced around the heavy thick scar where the corkscrew had dug into muscle and nearly to bone. He rubbed it absentmindedly as he shucked his underwear onto the rug, like the way he'd rub at the shiny wrinkled scar tissue on his hand when he thought long and hard about some tiny detail. His legs were a little long for his torso, which Martin noticed when he bent over the tub edge to size up the stool within, and there was a large patchy birthmark over the back of his right thigh just below his butt that looked like someone had spilled a pool of rich polished mahogany over him, a shade darker than the rest of his skin and a shade lighter than his eyes. A few more spatters of the same color and much smaller size peppered the area right above his tailbone, capping his spine with a small crowd of less traumatic spots, and Martin thought he'd rather like to kiss them.</p><p>Oh, he was going to write something terribly sappy and smitten later. He quickly busied himself with the collection of soap bottles on the counter.</p><p>"It's going to be a bit of a squeeze, but we'll fit." Looking over his shoulder, Jon took this moment to indulge his curiosity and excitement. Martin was already naked, holding a pair of shampoo bottles in his hands and reading the label of one, his glasses folded on the counter. He was much paler than Jon, the exact shade of yellow pink that really only came with tangled messy curls that exact shade of burnt coppery orange and those clouds of freckles; the ones on his cheeks were tinted with the red of a flush from the heat of the monster of an ancient radiator that he'd dragged into the bathroom earlier. Those reddened cheeks curved down into the soft roundness of his neck, where his jawline was a gradual progression from chin to throat, and his bent head shadowed the soft pronounced curve of his chest. </p><p>Faded purple stretch marks striped along the edges of his stomach and chest, interrupting the storms of freckles there every so often, and where belly folded over waist on his left hip Jon was startled to see a sunflower blossoming in ink, maybe a few inches across in size. It was right on the junction of leg and torso; it was the exact spot where Jon's hipbone would have stretched the skin taut on his own body, but on Martin it was a neat curvature of canvas instead. </p><p>One leg crossed over the other to scratch at the back of his calf with a foot, and Jon noticed the darkened gray of Martin's toes. Like they'd been dipped in gray blue paint...his heart clenched when he looked closer and realized they were marked with a permanent supernatural frostbite, a forever reminder of the Lonely's harsh grip even if it had since released him from its constant presence. A flick of his eyes told him the same marks darkened Martin's fingers, and Jon could only hope that because there were no other signs of damage, that they didn't still hurt.</p><p>Martin nodded thoughtfully, placing one of the bottles back on the sink's edge. "I don't mind. I'm good at making small." Crossing over to the tub next to Jon, he tested the water with a hesitant hand, then balanced the shampoo on the edge of the tub. He was pointedly avoiding Jon's gaze. "If you get in first you can get comfortable on the stool and then I can get in. I know the first shower didn't hurt, but you're not full of adrenaline and cortisol anymore, and I don't want the hot water to make you keel over from your heart exploding or something."</p><p>Jon rolled his eyes but obliged, picking over the lip of the tub and shivering where the cold edge of the plastic shower curtain clung to his ankle for a brief second. "I'm in rough shape, Martin, but I don't think a little raised heart rate will kill me." The hot water had warmed the surface of the stool to an acceptable degree, but he had to adjust his seat on it for a moment to get his bony rear end comfortable on the slightly textured plastic. As Martin stepped in, the small space of the shower darkened somewhat as he blocked some of the light pouring in from around the curtain, and the combined heat and dimness made it all the more close.</p><p>Most of the showerhead was spilling over Jon, which with him seated on the stool came up to the bottom of Martin's chest, and for a moment he felt a snatch of guilt at hogging the water, but that disappeared when Martin leaned in and over him, gently bracing large hands on scrawny shoulders so the water was drenching his copper curls instead. Where it coasted off his back and neck, the water formed little rivulets and waterfalls, splashing over Jon's face and hair in uneven streams. This close, he could hear Martin's slightly whistling breath where it blew through a nose made slightly crooked by a poorly healed break. His softer edged voice bounced back and forth between him and the wall of the tub beneath Jon when he spoke into the water. </p><p>"Sorry, I got real cold all of a sudden." He grinned down at Jon, the bottom of his chin and face slightly obscured by the rounded slope of his chest and its forest of copper and gray hairs. Shoulders up around his ears, he turned his face so it took the full brunt of the spray, nose crinkling and eyes squinted tight closed. "I'm all warmed up though, I can start on your hair. I can even do a massage if you want, like I used to do for mum."</p><p>"Oh." Something in Jon's throat did a frog leap for his mouth, but he ignored it. "Oh, Martin, I can do it myself, you don't have to take care of me."</p><p>"I mean, that's sort of the point?" Martin grabbed one of the shampoo bottles from the edge of the tub, frowning down at it in an obvious attempt to not meet Jon's eyes. "I don't have to, but I want to? I love you, and want to see you better." He finally looked down and back, and his eyes were a crisp gray, no blurred cool edges or glazed expression to be found. In that moment, they were the gray of steel, of unstoppable storm clouds before the maelstrom, strong and clear and very, very sure of themselves. "I get to choose and I'm choosing to take care of you. And I know you'd do the same for me, so..." The gaze broke in that moment, and he looked down. "Unless you're uncomfortable with it, which I totally understand."</p><p>The itch of rash and dirt on Jon's skin had slowly shifted to a different kind of sensation, one that felt empty and cold and had haunted him for the majority of his time in the Archives after waking from the coma. He reached up and caught Martin's hand in his relatively unharmed one, drawing it down so Martin would look at him. "Not at all. I missed this - missed you."</p><p>The strawberry shampoo smelled strongly when the bottle was opened, but even more so when Martin's broad flat hands began working it into his scalp. It stung at first, the vaguely antiseptic properties digging into the open sores on his delicate skin, but after a  moment Jon sagged into the relief of it, nearly pressing his face into the forest of hair on Martin's belly. It wouldn't fix all of the problems the Choke had definitely heaped upon him, but the heavy heat of fingertips in combination with the suffused steam of the shower plucked the tension from every muscle on his head and neck, loosened the tight bands around his temples and behind his ears. </p><p>There wasn't much to wash in the way of hair, but after he finished with the stunted fuzz, Martin moved on to Jon's body, using a washcloth to carefully pry the dirt and mud from places Jon himself didn't even realize he had. Whenever he moved to a new spot, Martin would glance up, waiting for the affirmative nod of "Go ahead" and then take the sensitive skin wash and cloth and rub gently at his tender skin. His hands and feet were especially a mess - each nail had to be trimmed almost to the bed, and the cloth rubbed beneath what was left to prevent any later infection. </p><p>Silence persisted for the most part, save for the hushed fall of water, but when Martin finally finished after a rather extended period, Jon felt that pleased tape recorder whirr start in his chest again, and this time he didn't quash it down. Instead, as Martin stood, so did he, and pressed himself against the other man, pulling his arms around and into a contented embrace. Freezing at the sudden contact, Martin then melted over him, burying his crooked nose in the bed of fuzz on Jon's head, enveloping him in broad soft-edged arms. </p><p>After a moment, Jon drew back, smiling with such adoration up at him it felt blinding. "I'll do you next."</p><p>Martin snorted, rubbing his hands over Jon's back, feeling the knobby line of his spine. "Your knees are already about to give out...how about compromise. I'll sit and you can do my hair?"</p><p>They agreed on the compromise, and Jon combed bony fingers through Martin's heavy copper curls. He wasn't as practiced as Martin, but his long thin fingers were precise, moving in neat circles around his head and down his neck, eliciting a shiver when they paused to trace an especially thick line of freckles in front of an ear. </p><p>It was over far too quickly, and by now the water had run rather cold, but they both tumbled out of the shower breathless and giggling from the adoring intimacy of it all, and Martin helped wrap a towel around Jon's stiff bony shoulders. They forwent the hair drier, Jon no longer needing it and Martin too focused on the soft beat of love both beneath his ribs and in his hands as he scrubbed the excess water away from bristly hair as his target squirmed underneath his fingers.</p><p>In the end though, they fell asleep in those towels, tangled both in each other and in the sheets of Martin's bed, neither terribly pressed to break their hold on the other's hand to paw through the dresser and look for clothes. And for the moment, it was peaceful.</p>
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